Rainy Saturday

Sure enough, last night, about an hour after I took the first Chantix dose, the nausea hit followed closely by The Weird Headache. This headache is nothing like my normal sinus headaches, which make me feel as though my eyeballs are going to pop out of my skull and make my upper jaw and my cheekbones ache like they're bruised. The Weird Headache is also nothing like the migraines I sometimes get, which start at the base of my neck and -- along with the complete failure of my vision -- bring pain so severe I feel that if I could just bore a hole in my head, the sledgehammer shattering my bones from the inside could escape.

No, The Weird Headache is this vague, floating thing. It's faint, and it drifts around inside the Chantix fog and every once in awhile it thuds dully against a nerve or a pressure point in odd places inside my skull. Behind my left ear. THUD. The top of my head where I part my hair. THUD. Even sometimes the side of my neck. THUD. It floats around for about two hours and then it fades. I hate it more than the nausea.

Mr. Savant got home from work at the tail end of The Weird Headache, when I was fully engulfed in the Chantix fog. He made dinner while I wandered around the house, unsure what I was looking for. For awhile, I stood in the middle of the kitchen and stared at nothing. That's pretty awesome, isn't it?

At 7:20, I realized it was Time to Take the Zoloft! An hour after I swallowed THAT pill (better living through pharmacology, an ex-girlfriend of mine used to say) I felt the fog lift. I knitted a little bit. I was able to follow along with the plots of the two TV shows we watched (and one of them was "Lost," so, take that, Chantix!).

Today, I feel a bit foggy, but that could just be the miserable weather outside. I drove to the grocery store and managed to get everything on the list without the benefit of the actual list, which I accidentally left in the car.

The strangest part is that I don't feel the cravings if I don't smoke for awhile. Already. I've only taken one pill so far. Is it a psychosomatic thing? Placebo effect? My body 'remembering' this chemical?

The thing that I am most afraid of: getting fat. Again. I'm not even going to use the politically correct "gaining weight." I'm five feet tall and I should weigh between 100 and 115 pounds. In my 20s I weighed between 95 and 105 pounds, but I lived in New York City, chain-smoked, barely ate and walked absolutely everywhere. Now, I eat better, I've gained a lot of muscle mass through yoga and my miles and miles of daily walking, and a brief period during which I was running 10 miles a week. Now, I fluctuate from about 106 to about 113 depending on the season, the variations of my cycle and my exercise and dietary habits. I'm totally fine with this.

What I'm not going to be fine with is being 137 pounds, which was the heaviest I'd ever weighed. Thanks, Chantix. I looked like shit. I felt like shit. Nothing fit me. I jiggled when I walked. My thighs chafed together. It was really demoralizing and uncomfortable and I felt horrible about myself. Yes, I am a raging feminist who is supposed to love her body and be completely accepting of its changes and its curves. But that doesn't mean I'm immune to the societal and patriarchal pressures to be thin, toned, lean, SKINNY.

And, of course, when I quit smoking and Mr. Savant and I have a baby, that's a completely different thing. It's okay to "gain weight" if I'm pregnant. Sure, no problem. Yes, I know, it's weird. But that's just how I see it from here.